Nighthawks
by Kelly1
Summary: Short Pietro/Dominikos Quicksilver/Avalanche one-shot. Slash warning. Pietro waits in a diner for Dominikos to arrive. Heavy on Pietro neurosis, easy on slash. Please R&R :: puppy eyes ::


A/N: Eight stories and no slash. That simply will not do, ffdotnet. I love Pietro, in all his incarnations. WatXM is no exception :) Writing critique flames are always accepted, flames because the story is a slash (male/male) are closed minded, and you have been warned in advance the story contains such. Boo on you.

Nighthawks By: Kelly1

It was the subtle sound of rattling of the coffee cup within its saucer, barely audible over the music drifting from the ancient jukebox, which alerted Pietro to the fact that he was thrumming his fingers rapidly on the counter top. It was a by-product of his impatience, Dominikos was over three minutes and forty seconds late. He concentrated on slowing his fingers to a more human speed. Petrakis has done this, no doubt, solely to annoy him. The fact that the diner waitress had not allowed him to see the bottom of his coffee cup in the twenty minutes he had been sitting here had nothing to do with this.

Despite the Greek's teasing, caffeine did not make him "over stimulated". He was exactly the correct amount of stimulated. He ran the fingers of his other hand over the smooth moulded plastic in his pocket, over the ring, down to the jagged metal teeth of the key to one of the rooms in the seedy motel which was attached to the diner.

He wasn't coming. He had not found the note under his pillow which Pietro had snuck in using his master key to their facility. Worse, he had found it and decided that this time he was not going to come. He hated Pietro and the next time that they saw each other would be awkward. He would be forced to leave the Brotherhood and Pietro would be stuck with Toad and Blob and the vaginas. Or maybe he had decided to come, and was intercepted by the MRDs. They were torturing him for information and soon their headquarters would be raided and destroyed, leaving Pietro's team captured and him alone. This would entirely be his fault of course. Had he not invited Dom out here, he would have been safe.

Breathe. Anxiety was one of his human flaws and he had to stop it from getting the better of him. One of the doctors he had seen had called it "the what-if disorder." Of course, when you had almost unlimited time to process things, to plot out every possible scenario, to worry about anything that could possibly happen, before anyone else even caught up, it was bound to lead to that. The upside was that he always had enough time to hide, to put on a disdainful, almost cocky facade. The downside was that facade barely concealed a jumble of taut nerves, quivering on the edge of snapping. Breathe. He repeated a phrase in his head: don't compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.

This was a terrible idea.

He knew that. He always vowed to never do this again... it was dangerous, it was stupid. He was putting both Dominik and himself at risk from the MRDs, and the X-annoyances, not that either were really much of a threat to either Avalanche or himself. What was really dangerous, what was supremely stupid, was allowing his feelings to be put so blatantly on the line each time he asked Dom to meet him like this. Of course, it had to be away from the rest of the team. God, they probably already noticed the stupid grin on his face, his distraction. Neena had already made more than one snide remark about Pietro looking as though he'd been hit by a natural disaster. But to do this in their facility, in their home... no he was not ready for that yet. It wasn't right, and he couldn't mix the two: Avalanche his teammate, whom Pietro... no Quicksilver... had to ask, with almost every mission, to put his life on the line, and Dominikos, all calm smiles, who Pietro would give up anything to keep safe. In the reflection in the mirror behind the counter, he watched in what he hoped appeared to be a disinterested manner as Dom entered, four minutes and twenty-six seconds late, shaking the rain from his broad shoulders. As far as mutants went, Dominikos was relatively inconspicuous: no purple skin, or tentacles, or flames at least. As far as men went though, he was far from ignorable, olive complexion, glossy dark hair, the kind of smile that made a room feel comfortable. He was large, but at ease with his size, his massive palms gentle in a way that Pietro had not expected the first time he had felt them on his bare skin -- Pietro shuttered delightedly and involuntarily at the memory -- ducking sideways down the narrow aisle of booths to reach him at the counter.

Pietro did not allow him the courtesy of facing him directly as he sat down on the stool next to him. He met his eyes in the mirror instead. "You're late, you know. That's exceptionally rude of you."

Dominikos calmly flipped over his coffee cup, reaching over Pietro for the cream in anticipation for when the waitress returned to fill it. The fact that he smelled like aftershave and heaven did not escape the speedster. "Some might call it rude leaving notes for someone when they are planning on sleeping, dragging them out to the middle of nowhere late in the night with no warning, Pie." He yawned theatrically. Pietro bristled at "Pie." It had started as a misunderstanding, a mispronunciation on the part of the Greek when he had first read Quicksilver's name on the dossier. He still occasionally used it now to exasperate Pietro.

Pietro was still annoyed at having to wait; he was not going to let Dominik off the hook. "No one forced you to come." It was meant to sound sharp, reprimanding, as though Pietro didn't care. His vocal chords waivered slightly and he cursed them for betraying him.

A smile from Dominikos. "Let you sit here all night drinking coffee and fretting over me not arriving?" Strong fingers on his neck rubbed firmly, loosening the knots in his tightly coiled shoulder muscles. "No. I am already going to have to rub your back for too long before we begin just from being late. If I did not show up I expect you might become one giant knot of stress."

Pietro closed his eyes, his response a muffled sigh.

"That does not bode well, an unhappy leader."

Pietro shrugged off the hand playfully and quirked an eyebrow, "So you are doing this for the team then."

"Of course. This has nothing to do with me enjoying your quirks, nothing to do with the way you smile at me, and absolutely nothing to do with way you look in your battle suit." A wink.

Pietro could feel the blush creep into his ears. The waitress returned, refilling Pietro's cup and starting Dom's. She smiled at him, "Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"I would not say no to a slice of pie." Pietro caught another wink in the mirror, a hand closing over his and the key in his pocket.

The End

Please review maybe :: looks down at the ground, kicks a rock:: if you want to.


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